The present invention generally relates to image forming apparatuses, and more particularly to an image forming apparatus such as a laser printer which uses character fonts.
Generally, when forming an image on an image forming apparatus such as a laser printer, the laser printer may use a bit map font or an outline font. When printing on the printer which uses the bit map font an enlarged character having a width of over one inch, for example, the quality of the printed character is unsatisfactory in that the height and width of each dot are enlarged thereby making the contour of the character uneven.
On the other hand, the printer which uses the outline font determines the position of the character curve by a function, and prints the dot at a position closest to the curve for each line on the paper. For this reason, the error in the dot position becomes conspicuous as the size of the character becomes smaller. Generally, the quality of the printed character is poor for the character with the outline font of under eight points (1 inch=72 points).
Therefore, in the case of the bit map font, there is a problem in that the quality of the printed character becomes poor when the size of the character is greater than a predetermined size due to the uneven contour of the character. But in the case of the outline font, there is a problem in that the quality of the printed character becomes poor when the size of the character is smaller than a predetermined size.